Parish prays, prepares for Lent

By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press

At an outdoor fire on a cold night last week, leaders and parishioners of St. Mary of the Hills Parish in Boylston prayed and prepared for Lent, burning palms and petitions.
“The idea was born after the riots at the capitol,” the pastor, Father Juan D. Echavarria, told The Catholic Free Press. “One of the staff members said, ‘We should have a prayer … for peace in the nation.’ I said, ‘Why don’t we prepare something in preparation for Lent? … Pray for the country, pray for the end of the pandemic and (pray for) the parish.”
“It’s really hard to try to do things, and do them safely,” said Anne Dowen, director of religious education. St. Mary’s held Mass outside last summer, but now that Mass is inside, fewer people come, she said. So they talked about having an outdoor event with a fire.
Father Echavarria figured that, since the event was to prepare for Lent, they could burn palms. Although the parish already had ashes for Ash Wednesday left from previous years, burning palms would be a sign of a traditional way those ashes are produced, he said.
“So many people have palms,” Mrs. Dowen said. “Every Palm Sunday I bring home palms.” When they dry out she doesn’t know what to do with them, so they accumulate behind her Last Supper picture.
“The theme of the prayer became burning the old and creating the new, setting our hearts on fire … making space for new life in Christ,” which Lent is about, Father Echavarria said.
“We gave everyone a rock” with the word “hope” on it, Mrs. Dowen said. “After everybody burned the old” and closed with the song, “Let there be Peace on Earth,” “we left a hopeful people.”
“I chose a Scripture passage … Exodus 3, Moses encountering God in the burning bush,” receiving God’s promise to bring his people out of slavery in Egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey, Father Echavarria said. “As Moses encountered God in the fire, we can.… There’s something about the fire that’s conducive to prayer.”
Father Echavarria said he’d asked people ahead of time to write their prayer intentions on papers that would be burned in the fire.
Claudine Underwood, the parish secretary, told her 5-year-old, Jordan, about it.
“To try to get him involved, I told him he could write a message to God or his Grampy,” who died in 2019, she said. He drew smiley faces to show his Grampy he’s still smiling. Watching the fire, Jordan “pointed up to the sky and asked if the ‘steam’ was going up to heaven,” she said.
“The turnout was really great” - about 40 people, Father Echavarria said.
He said it was prayerful and people liked it.
“I was very surprised how many people stayed to talk,” said Mrs. Dowen. “Nobody left” - unlike when Mass is ended.


Photos by John Rodriguez